Run, Jump and slide on walls along the vast paths that lead to the top of the tower. Your Journey starts at the bottom of a mountain range, then heads through clouds and frightening heights, only to conclude with the chaotic and heaven-like top.


CONTROLS
  • move - AD or arrow keys
  • jump - W, UP or space
  • interact - E

A word about wall jumps: You don't have to press against the wall, all you need is to touch it. When you wall ride, release the direction against the wall and just hold the opposite direction before (or after) jumping. So whenever you are in contact with a wall, aim at the opposite direction, it won't cancel your wall slide!


RANDOM FACTS
  • Wall jumps are a bit difficult to familiarize with but we promise you can get used to them~
  • Speedrun record set by Baku at 2:13!
  • We're working on a post-jam version
  • No electric fence has been harmed during the making of this game
  • Same cannot be promised regarding our sleep schedule

ABOUT US YO

We are KwissleLine (and we love you)


SCREENSHOTS

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  • C0DERP1GLET
    Lv. 36

    I played this again and didn't agree with what I thought earlier. So I changed my ratings and deleted my feedback. The first time I played, I was in school; I was quite stressed and my friend stood behind me and pointed out all the little problems. Of course, I try to avoid letting external or social factors influence my ratings, and I never thought it did. But it did. Congratulations for a wonderful game!

    Also, I waited in 10 minutes for the elevator to come. But the countdown just turned negative. What an anticlimax.

    Edit: No, I didn't save it.

    • Kwis
      Lv. 67
      Kwis Developer of Above The Clouds

      4yrs ago

      Yeah, we wanted the elevator to do something, but unfortunately, we ran out of time. It stops at -7 because that's the floor you're in! (still in the caves) It just doesn't do anything once it stops. Sorry :(

      Though you didn't need to change ratings :o

      Now I don't think I remember your feedback, which means I can't read through it again. By any chance did you save it somewhere?

      Even if there are nitpicks and that sort of things, or even if you didn't feel like it should have influenced the ratings the way they did, I still consider any feedback interesting to take in account, even if I disagree with them! It's always nice to know what people feel about the game!

      In any case, thank you for playing again!

  • havik
    Patron

    A short but sweet game with amazing art and sound (as always!). I think you did a good job of completing it this time, it definitely feels like it goes from start -> middle -> end, so good job balancing your time better with this one and getting a complete game done!

    As for the walljump... I did struggle with it! I don't think it's bad, I just think it's different. I personally am used to holding 'into' the wall before then pressing jump and the direction I want to go. So not having to do this, while fine, wasn't easy to get used to so I ended up falling off walls quite a lot. In the end I just mashed the buttons until I went up the walls, which seemed to work :D (I haven't read any other feedback so sorry if I'm just flogging a dead horse here on the wall jump).

    I reeeeaally wish the lift did something too! I opened the game again after I finished it and let it count down and ... nothing. I was hoping it would just take you to the top and the father would call you lazy or something :P However that's not important gameplay wise, just thought it would be funny.

    I think I got outside of the world somewhere near the top? You can see a lift behind a wall but you can climb up around it to a teleport point, which means it was probably the right way to go even though the lift is behind a wall? Might just have been lack of time with the level design but, whatever the case, it got me to the end :D

    So no issues really apart from the wall jump struggle (but again, that's more a me issue than a game issue). Good job!

    • Kwis
      Lv. 67
      Kwis Developer of Above The Clouds

      4yrs ago

      "I think you did a good job of completing it this time, it definitely feels like it goes from start -> middle -> end, so good job balancing your time better with this one and getting a complete game done!"

      Thank you! This was our main goal this jam and despite the unsatisfaction we feel about the game, we did it for once!

      "I haven't read any other feedback so sorry if I'm just flogging a dead horse here on the wall jump"

      Well absolutely all feedbacks mention the wall jump so... yes! xD But it's okay! It's my fault, I deserved it!

      "I was hoping it would just take you to the top and the father would call you lazy or something :P"

      This actually was the plan! :D 48 hours

      "Might just have been lack of time with the level design"

      Yes. I was internally crying as I saw Proble do this as well. I forgot to lock that place up. But you know, it's intended, so it's not a glitch or anything. Easter egg you know. please believe me

      Thank you for your feedback!

  • Fachewachewa
    Patron

    .... weird walljump heh? 👀

    This honestly doesn't look or sound like a gamejam game, I think the biggest letdown for me was the level design. It's mostly fine but not that inspired, which means it isn't on par with the rest of the game. I still think the part where you get the double jump isn't that good though. That wall with the electricity è_é

    • WangleLine 🌸
      Patron
      WangleLine 🌸 Developer of Above The Clouds

      4yrs ago

      Yeah, we sadly had to rush the last two levels, so those are especially clunky and very, very poorly designed :<

    • Kwis
      Lv. 67
      Kwis Developer of Above The Clouds

      4yrs ago

      Gonna mention that I'm personally responsible for the last levels, cause I like to shoot myself in the foot :D

      "This honestly doesn't look or sound like a gamejam game, I think the biggest letdown for me was the level design." The way you squeezed in "the biggest letdown" in the same sentence implies it's not fit to be a jam game in a bad way :p (i don't think that was your intention, so it's funny that I first thought it was)

      Thank you for your input! I hope you dream of our wall jumps monsieur!

  • Gelidity
    Lv. 17

    Well done! I really enjoyed it. Art and music was very pleasant. I think it looked better inside the caves. When outside, everything seemed blockier. Maybe because the background was circles and the cloud tiles didn't mesh, but it was still nice.

    The walljumping took a few moments to adapt to, but didn't give me too many problems. I know you already got a lot of feedback about this aspect, but I'll add that in my opinion, when it comes to player control, the fewer actions that are performed automatically, the better. I refer to the automatic wall sliding. It reduces player frustration (at least mine) when they don't have to rely on a mystery force to play part of their character for them, so when it doesn't happen the fault is on them for their slow reaction speed or mistimed input. You also don't want it to happen at an awkward time, like when you are just trying to jump up a normal staircase and end up sliding in them.

    All around, great work!

    • Kwis
      Lv. 67
      Kwis Developer of Above The Clouds

      4yrs ago

      Yeah, we wanted to have outside sections to vary the scenery, but we kinda rushed those levels.

      As it was already mentioned earlier, post jam version's wall jumps aren't automatic now, you gotta push on that wall

      Thank you for your feedback!

  • Tero Hannula
    Patron

    The sound was really great, graphics were nice also. I managed to get out of bounds at the near end of the game, as it seemed the actual path instead the real way ^^" The walljumping, which many has talked about, I'll also give my word here, but without reading others comments :D First, here is video of me trying walljump (this is after getting first spot where you needed walljump): https://imgur.com/a/ctshVNt

    My struggle was even worse at first spot, which took me ages :'D Later I got more hang of it, as I found what was wrong with my attempts.

    I will explain my reason, why I struggled so hard. What I tried, was lean against the wall I am on to: I try move player against the wall before walljump. In your game, if you are next to wall, it automatically assumes walljumping position; no need to moving against the wall. This is not bad. The more important is what happens when you jump. When I jump, I might still be holding a bit longer button as to assume that I need to lean the wall to initiate walljump. And after jumping I would change my key to to another direction where I am trying to get to. This is short period of time, which assumes that you need lean/move to wall, to make a walljump. In this kind of walljump, there is usually small window where it will not anymore register you control towards the wall, when you kick off from it, just the possible movement away from it. Now, in your game there was no such window, so character would try immediatly move back towards to the wall after jump. I think assumption is, that player is not trying to go towards the wall, as it automatically is going to walljump.

    So, I tried to move against the wall, jump and then almost immediatly change my direction key. This didn't work, as I would for short time move in wrong direction. How I eventually learnt to jump in your game was to let go everything and then press simultanously jump and direction of heading. So climbing up narrow tower was [up-right, hold until reach next wall] [let go both - be against wall] [up-left, hold until reach wall] and repeat. This is kind of rythmic and nice when climbing long narrow tower.

    In my struggle video, I was not doing this yet, but I was struggling hard to not do how I instinctly was doing before. Maybe what I was doing in video, was trying lean against the wall, then let go, then press jump, and after jump try to move the head of direction. This was too slow, as you can see I start moving away from wall too slowly. The mental struggle ^^"

    Overall game looked pretty and sound was great :) Sorry that it's the walljump controversy which surrounds game now ^^"

    • Kwis
      Lv. 67
      Kwis Developer of Above The Clouds

      4yrs ago

      "How I eventually learnt to jump in your game was to let go everything and then press simultanously jump and direction of heading" Actually, to be specific:

      Once you're wall riding, you keep wall riding. To jump to the opposite side, you just need to hold the opposite direction and press jump. You don't need to press them once together, you can just hold the other direction and jump. OR (i just checked) You can actually just jump and then press the direction. That works as well. All you need to do is not pressing against the wall before jumping

      The reason is confusing is because people don't expect that you'd have the freedom to press the other direction while being on the wall because wall riding cannot be cancelled. We usually assume we gotta keep pressing against the wall, which isn't the case here.

      I thought the text hint it throws when you struggle for a while on the first wall ride would be enough, but I guess it was not clear enough.

      Fortunately, it's something you can get used to! But naturally, it takes a while to understand how it works, and that adaptation time is not ideal for a game jam.

      On the post jam it works differently :D

  • Nyveon
    Patron

    I'm blown away by how good this is. The sound design, the art, everything is amazing.

    I'm going to go against the feedback most people have given regarding the wall jump: It's different than most platformers, sure, but once you get used to it it's fine. I think the elevator might be broken, it went straight past the first floor into the negatives :(

    Having some way of moving the camera would have been nice as well.

    Wish the game were longer, but within the time constraints of the jam and considering the quality of everything else it's understandable.

    Overall really well done!

    • Kwis
      Lv. 67
      Kwis Developer of Above The Clouds

      4yrs ago

      Wow thank you!

      For the wall jump, my intention with it was to disregard other games to make my own with my own logic. And yes, it gets fine as we get used to it, but it's kind of inuntuitive and I've found myself misusing it, which is on its own a bad sign. We did already change how it works in the post jams to accomodate with previous feedbacks, cause I gotta admit I agree with them, the wall jumps could be improved.

      About the elevator, it going to the negative is intentional: when you call the elevator, you are still in the caves, before the towers! So it reaches -7. Sadly, we didn't have the time to code something happening when it does. Would have been great. Thanks for waiting for it to reach you though!

      About the cameras, we had triggers to make the camera accomodate the platforming, but as time started running out we didn't place them in every room!

      And yeah, I planned a few more levels, but as you know, we lacked time. :) We prefered focusing on an ending although it could have allowed us 1 or 2 more levels; at least the game can end, unlike our other games.

      Thank you for playing!

  • kbjwes77
    Lv. 19

    >"We can't finish games properly, but at least they look and sound lovely!"

    Pretty accurate, although I would say this one was finished more properly than most. Loved the size of the world and the atmosphere, the sound effects really tied the world together and the art was clear and appealing. No real complaints, solid work!

    • Kwis
      Lv. 67
      Kwis Developer of Above The Clouds

      4yrs ago

      Yes, our goal this time around was to finish the game. Beginning. End. Levels in between. In that aspect I think we did great improvments!

      Thank you for your input!

  • Kyon
    Lv. 25

    I really like your entries for it's originality but this one was kind of lacking. I didn't like the controls, especially the walljump. And it felt like some artwork was rushed compared to the other art.

    Idk, I played til the clouds, and I think the part before that was too long and didn't really grab my interest.

    I did like the elevator 'joke' though.

    Tower Guy
    Submitted

    Tower Guy

    • Kwis
      Lv. 67
      Kwis Developer of Above The Clouds

      4yrs ago

      Yeah, our goal this jam was to mainly focus on having a progression level wise instead of always having like, 3 levels done with the last levels being unfinished. So this time around we decided to make sure we had a beginning, progression and an ending. I may be kind of disappointed with the results but I really regret no minute of it (especially considering I had to miss about 6 hours due to irl)

      In any case, thank you for playing!

  • singleshot
    Lv. 43

    Honestly your guy's games are always a highlight of these jam's for me, and this one was no exception.

    I found the movement and jump height, to be nicely balanced for the level design. and the variable jump height was a nice touch for the feel of movement. that being said, the wall jumping was probably the biggest hurdle in my enjoyment of the platforming.

    I could see what you where going for (or at lest I think I do ). making it so the player can switch input directions before jumping for better precision. the biggest issue I have with it is that it takes control away from the player. ones the slide began you have to jump or fall with no other options to cancel it. on top of that the slide will begin even if you hold in to the wall, making the double jump fail in to a slide if you try delaying the second jump on a wall. another issue is that the wall slide is inconsistent. I found many times where the player will not begin to slide making me unable to wall jump.

    every thing else felt great, but the wall jump which was the core movement mechanic in the later game, held it back.

    when it did work well on the other hand the amount of of control I had after the jump gave me plenty of options in the air which felt great.

    i guess a decent fix to it would be to, make down cancel the slide in case you down want to, hold down to initiate the slide. and lastly a different animation if your holding away from the wall to better convey where your holding will change the after math of the jump.

    but that is just the first few things that come to mind, anyways on the other end of the spectrum, the art and sound design was great. the clash of the bright visuals with the consent of a collapsing unmaintained tower gave the levels a nice charm. and the detail of the sound design, from the ambient piano to the hundreds of step sound gave me a great sense of immersion.

    all the fine detail poured in to your respected areas of expertise really made me want to keep playing, in spite of any and all hick-ups I ran in to across the way.

    the main ones being the wall-jumping, a few times I got stuck, and hitting R during cut-scenes and restarting the games.

    anyways, I hope to see you guys improve and make more great experiences in the future!

    • WangleLine 🌸
      Patron
      WangleLine 🌸 Developer of Above The Clouds

      4yrs ago

      Thank you so, so much for the extremely detailed feedback - I can't stress enough how valuable this is for us.

      I wrote down everything you mentioned here and we're going to use your critique to improve our game for the post-jam version, without a doubt.

      Once again, thank you!

    • Kwis
      Lv. 67
      Kwis Developer of Above The Clouds

      4yrs ago

      Hello singleshot!

      I forgot to reply but I already did use your feedback to figure out ways to fix the wall jump regarding its trigger and untrigger. (down and opposite key to the wall now change your state and to trigger it, you need to push against the wall. This is not needed when wall jumping, to allow you to wall jump consecutively without needing to keep it pushed)

      Also R should have always been to restart the level, not the game. I'm kind of upset we let that restart the whole game to be honest.

      I'm happy you caught the "collapsing unmaintained tower" part of it because this was our intention for most of it

      Thank you for your feedback!

  • Allison James
    Patron

    I had a couple of minor technical hitches, but for a two person team, this was a surprisingly fleshed out game from an "amount of content" perspective.

    It looks and sounds superb and controlled fluently, and I had a lot of fun with it. Great work!

    • WangleLine 🌸
      Patron
      WangleLine 🌸 Developer of Above The Clouds

      4yrs ago

      Yeah, it turns out we didn't get around to fix a few of the issues. Walljumps feel very odd, the grass layer is rendered on top of the player, sometimes you can get stuck in ceilings if you jump on those oneway-platforms in the right way etc.

      Thanks for playing, though! Glad you enjoyed it anyway~

    • Kwis
      Lv. 67
      Kwis Developer of Above The Clouds

      4yrs ago

      Yes! Our goal this gm48 was mostly to really focus hard on the content and progression, rather than focusing on unimportant issues or juice (the game is rather low on juice). We're at least happy of that. Thanks for playing!

  • Scientixel
    Lv. 6

    Really liked it. Visually a very beautiful game, especially for a jam. Audio was also great. I think there might be a memory leak somewhere because my game kept slowing down, but because no one else had that problem I'm going to assume it's because my laptop is trash. The wall jump is like a normal wall jump, but I think it doesn't have to control like others, it works and I think it's a unique way of doing it.

  • baku
    Patron

    An audio-visual delight, obviously. The sound really is way better than it needs to be, lol. Walljumping did need some getting used to, but other than that, not much to complain about here.

    Sincerely, Current WR holder 😎

    • WangleLine 🌸
      Patron
      WangleLine 🌸 Developer of Above The Clouds

      4yrs ago

      Thanks for speedrunning the game and breaking our records, lol.

      Oh, and the walljumps have been reworked for the upcoming post-jam version of the game, but we're glad you got used to the old, shoddy walljumps anyway! A lot of folks have complained about that part

    • Kwis
      Lv. 67
      Kwis Developer of Above The Clouds

      4yrs ago

      Hey! thanks for caring for the game enough that you managed to beat our own records!

      Cheers!

  • Azecy
    Lv. 2

    Nice game! I had a lot of problems in the first room with double jumps, when I would accidentally waste my double jump after failing a wall jump. I did figure out that you can climb up the side of a wall with great difficulty using short jumps and skipped a tough wall jump. In any case, I'd love to see the kinks worked out in the wall jump since the gameplay was good otherwise. It's very polished, especially the sound & music!

    • WangleLine 🌸
      Patron
      WangleLine 🌸 Developer of Above The Clouds

      4yrs ago

      Yes, the walljumps are definitely a bit tricky to understand, and that's our fault for coding it in a somewhat odd way.

      Glad you enjoyed it, though - Thanks for playing!

    • Kwis
      Lv. 67
      Kwis Developer of Above The Clouds

      4yrs ago

      Yeah, the way wall jumps are made take some time to get used to. We already took care of this in the post jam version! It was a small thing to fix, really. Thank you for your feedback! :)

  • Roalinn
    Lv. 8

    Amazing game. Congratulations. Only the wall jump is a bit hard for the controls.

    Jump Again
    Submitted

    Jump Again

  • Hyper Freeze Games
    Lv. 17

    This game seems veery polished! A bit longer and with some more features or enemies and I could easily see this sold on itch or something.

    Sound design is just great, may I ask what program/tools you used to achieve this?

    Art and animation look, again, very polished and just cool, reminds me a bit of Momodora, which I absolutely loved.

    My only real complaint is the wall jump. I don't think it's "bad", it's just different than it usally is done in these kinds of games, so it took some getting used to after a few frustrating falls, lol.

    But overall, the game handles very nice and, most importantly, was fun to play! Also, the elevator is a lie...

    Wallrider
    Submitted

    Wallrider

    • Kwis
      Lv. 67
      Kwis Developer of Above The Clouds

      4yrs ago

      Hello thanks for playing!

      Yes, the wall jump was a bit challenging to make. It's a bit hard to figure out what feels intuitive and good once you get used to them, cause then it feels easy. I think this is one of the most challenging things in game dev, being able to ignore our own perspective when we are so used to our own mechanic.

      Aha, sorey about the elevator. I actually planned something to happen as it stops at the right floor but sadly, game jam.

      Thanks for your feedback

      (I'll let WangleLine answer for sound and design)

    • WangleLine 🌸
      Patron
      WangleLine 🌸 Developer of Above The Clouds

      4yrs ago

      I made the sound effects just with plain old FL Studio. All samples were either recorded in my room with a Rode NT1-A (like an oven grate for the metal footsteps, the little vocal strains etc.) or pulled from my older sample collections and heavily manipulated.

      Most of the "magic"-ish sounds are just full-wet reverbs, rendered and repitched, retimed.

      Hope this helps! If you have any more questions, send me a message on Twitter (@WangleLine)

  • MondayHopscotch
    Lv. 2

    There were a couple small parts where the camera made it hard to see where I was going, but the art and audio were very nice. Controls felt pretty good -- though it took me a bit to get used to the wall jumping for some reason -- even though I knew how it worked.

    What did you use as your physics engine? it felt pretty tight and handled edges well (I also appreciated the coyote time)

    • Kwis
      Lv. 67
      Kwis Developer of Above The Clouds

      4yrs ago

      Hey!

      I would like to know where you had these camera issues to figure if the reason was the camera panning not done correctly or because they were missing (the last levels are rather rushed) If you could send me a message about it I would appreciate it (in discord if you are on the gms server, twitter...)

      As for the physics we only used normal code (as in, no physics, no engine), it's basically just about manually setting conditions and stuff.

      Thanks for the feedback! :)

    • WangleLine 🌸
      Patron
      WangleLine 🌸 Developer of Above The Clouds

      4yrs ago

      The last few levels had huge issues with the camera because I didn't have enough time to place all the camera triggers. The last few levels are generally very rushed and not really polished, sadly

  • Problematicar
    Lv. 37

    Team push your dad off the ledge represent!

    Cig Tower
    Submitted

    Cig Tower

  • Yosi
    Lv. 46

    Real nice game! Walljump controls were hard to get used to, but I figured it out eventually. Only real complaint is that pressing R restarts the entire game. I got to the dad and then pressed R instead of E...

    • Kwis
      Lv. 67
      Kwis Developer of Above The Clouds

      4yrs ago

      Yeah I initially wanted to make it so that you need to press it longer but we ran out of time!

      I wasn't sure how to tackle walljumps, but I got so much used to it that it feels easy to me. Hence why I had her give a tip when you struggle on the first wall jump. It's hard to figure it out tbh

      Thank you for your feedback!